J.D. Vance

Despite his numerous accomplishments, J.D. Vance remained a low-profile figure until the release of his book, Hillbilly Elegy, in June of 2016. As he himself writes in the first pages of the book, he had until then "accomplished nothing great in [his] life," but he declares he wrote the book because he had "achieved something quite extraordinary." By this, Vance refers to the fact that he overcame his poor, "hillbilly" roots and ended up in the Ivy League (Vance).

J.D. Vance Essays

In his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, J. D. Vance tells of how he advanced from a hillbilly to a relatively wealthy author. From a family and culture of drug abuse and instability, Vance made his way to one of the country’s most elite law schools and...

J.D. Vance, in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, uses his own experiences living in rural Kentucky and industrial Ohio to paint a picture of the problems facing the poor white class—and its accompanying “Hillbilly” culture— which dominates American...

In J.D Vance’s wildly-popular 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, Vance recounts his childhood experience of Appalachian poverty and makes a sociological argument against government handouts. Speaking from...